1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to thermo-economic modeling and optimization of power plants, and more particularly, to thermo-economic modeling and optimization of a combined cooling, heating, and power plant.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power Plants (CCHP) are becoming increasingly popular in both residential and commercial sectors for meeting desired energy demands. Since these systems integrate cooling, heating and power generation capabilities at one site, they result in potentially lower capital costs. The presence of multiple energy sources which characterizes these systems also provides a significant potential for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse emissions.
A hierarchical paradigm including a supervisory control layer may be used to control such systems. The supervisory layer determines the set-points of important plant operation parameters such as component on/off states, water and gas temperatures, mass flow rates, etc.
However, it can be difficult to determine the set-points that would be most optimal for providing efficient plant operation. Detailed models for CCHP components are available. However, integration of such detailed models for plant-wide optimization may result in large computation times and other practical concerns related to implementation.
Thus, there is a need to develop reduced order models, which accurately capture important dependencies contained in the detailed models and also allow their use for efficient and robust optimization.